Born Yesterday (1950)

The greatest pleasure in watching Born Yesterday, one of the nominees for Best Picture of 1950, is seeing the performance of Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. So good is Holliday in the role that she won the Oscar for Best Actress over two of the most acclaimed and influential performances by women in the history of movies: Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All about Eve and Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Perhaps Holliday won because the votes were split between Davis and Swanson and she snuck in, but I suspect that voters saw just how remarkably nuanced and subtle Holliday's comedic performance is. It, too, has become a classic, and it's the main reason that Born Yesterday is still an enjoyable, entertaining film.

Broderick Crawford plays Harry Brock, a millionaire who's made his fortune buying and selling junk. He's quite proud, even boastful, of his humble beginnings, but he wants to make even more money. To do so, he needs to get some legislation passed by Congress. So he comes to Washington, with his lawyer and his assistant in tow, to see how many Congressmen he has to buy in order to get his way. In Harry's eyes, everyone has a price; you just have to find out what it is. He plans to take his money and spread it around until he achieves his goal (which is to make it easier for him to earn even more money).

Along for the trip is his girlfriend or fiancee, depending upon whose perspective you want to take, Billie Dawn. Billie isn't a smart woman, but she doesn't feel a particular need to become smart. A former show girl whom Harry rescued from the chorus, she gets whatever she wants: clothes, jewels, trips, furs, anything. All she has to do in return is sign some papers. She actually has to sign a lot of papers, but she never truly understands what she's signing. The truth is Harry and his lawyer have put quite a lot of Harry's holdings in Billie's name--she's one of his corporate officers, little more than a figurehead, really--so as to avoid having to declare the income from them. Billie, in fact, seems to own more of Harry's various interests than he does. She just doesn't know it.

After a disastrous first meeting with a Congressman and his wife where Billie makes some very off-the-wall comments and plays loud music on her radio instead of making conversation, Harry decides that Billie needs to be "smartened up" a bit. He enlists the help of a journalist with whom he earlier had an interview, Paul Verall (William Holden), and once he determines the price, $200 a week, everything is set for Billie's lessons to begin. The trouble is Billie doesn't want to learn; she wants to have a fling with Paul instead. Knowing what the Supreme Court is has little interest to her; getting to romance someone who looks like William Holden seems far more intriguing.

Nevertheless, Paul tries to stay dedicated to the task for which he's being paid. He brings her some books to read and some newspapers to go over. He tells her that she should not just read the funnies, as she is more accustomed to doing, but to take a look at the items in the front of the paper, "the not-so-funnies." He tells her to circle anything she doesn't understand in the newspaper, and when he returns the next day, the front page is covered with marks. He takes things slowly and explains concepts to Billie in easy-to-understand language, and she begins a process of becoming interested in learning. She even puts what appears to be an unabridged dictionary to frequent use, especially when she has to come up with insults for Harry. And it's a lovely touch having Billie put on glasses like the ones Paul is wearing; she must think it's a sign of intelligence.

The film features some lovely footage of Washington as Paul takes Billie on a tour of significant landmarks. They visit the Capitol, the Jefferson Memorial, the National Gallery of Art, and the National Archives at the Library of Congress, where Billie is impressed by the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Gettysburg Address. He even takes her to a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra in order to broaden her cultural horizons. After the performance, she tells him a bit about her upbringing, including some tender reminiscences about her father. It's clear by this point that Paul has fallen in love with Billie, and she says to him, "I go for you too."

Of course, a crisis occurs when Billie is asked to sign some more papers, ones involving a merger with French and Italian companies, and she asks for time to read them over first. Harry becomes furious and hits her. He then belittles her by calling her "dumb" and "cheap," and she leaves the hotel in order to figure out what she should do. She's really in love with Paul by now, but she fears they may no longer have a chance for a romantic relationship, given how much time they've devoted just to her self-improvement. When Paul proposes to her and then Harry tells her she's getting married to him, Billie has to decide what kind of future she wishes. The solution she comes up with is quite clever and shows just how far she's grown in the time she's been Paul's pupil.

Holliday gets some great lines in the film, thanks to the original play by Garson Kanin and the screenplay by Albert Mannheimer. She must have been one of the first people to say, "Pardon me for living," and one of her most famous lines is "Would you do me a favor, Harry?... Drop dead." But Holliday could make almost any humorous line sting. Just hearing her yell "Whaaat?" in that distinctive tone of hers is a delight. She's just as great at making her physical actions the source of comedy. I always laugh when I see her trying to walk the way she thinks someone classy might walk. I also can't help but laugh when I watch Billie and Harry playing a game of gin rummy, perhaps the most well known scene in the film. She has her little rituals like shuffling the cards around and singing music that sounds like it should accompany a striptease, and I love how she deals the cards when she's made at Harry. It's quite a masterful performance overall. I don't know that I would have chosen it over the performances by Davis and Swanson, but it's the reason why Born Yesterday is still an engaging film.

Oscar Win: Actress (Holliday)

Other Oscar Nominations: Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Costume Design (Black and White)

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

A Letter to Three Wives, nominated for Best Picture of 1949, is the film equivalent of a five-paragraph essay. For those of you who are not English teachers, the five-paragraph essay is a formulaic way of writing. It's given as a model to students so that they can concentrate on generating and developing ideas instead of having to worry about coming up with a way to organize their thoughts. Such an essay starts with an introduction that contains a thesis with three distinct parts. Each of those three parts is discussed separately in a body paragraph, with awkward transitions such as "next" or "secondly" or "finally" thrown in on occasion. The essay ends with a conclusion that attempts to bring all of the ideas back together again, usually by either repeating the idea in the three-part thesis or by briefly summarizing the information in the three body paragraphs.

A Letter to Three Wives starts with the title characters getting ready to serve as chaperons for a picnic. It's a Saturday morning, and they've volunteered to spend the day with a group of kids on a boat trip to an island. All three of their husbands are engaging in some odd behavior for a Saturday. Deborah Bishop (Jeanne Crain) is trying to get her husband Brad (Jeffrey Lynn) to tell her when he will be home from a conference he's attending; he only promises to call and let her know later on that evening. Rita Phipps (Ann Sothern) notices, finally, that her husband George (Kirk Douglas) is wearing his blue suit on the weekend; she had figured on him going fishing like he normally does. And Lora Mae Hollingsway (Linda Darnell) doesn't even know that her husband Porter (Paul Douglas) was seen boarding the train earlier in the day.

Just before the women get on the boat, they receive a letter addressed to all three of them. It's from Addie Ross (whose voice-over is supplied by Celeste Holm), allegedly a friend of theirs. Addie has left town with one of their husbands, but she doesn't reveal which one in her letter. The women have no time to make a last-minute phone call before the boat leaves--remember, this was long before cell phones--so they have to carry on. Naturally, if you receive a letter like this one, you can't ignore it all day long; you'd start to wonder if your husband was the one who left with Addie. What follows is a series of flashbacks, one for each woman, that attempt to show Addie's role in their lives.

First up is Crain's Deborah Bishop. She and her husband have just ended their military service; he was in the Navy and she was in the WAVES. It's her first time to meet some of his friends at the local country club, and Deborah is worried that they'll see that she's still just a farm girl at heart. She's upset about her hair and her dress, and she starts to drink a few martinis to give her some courage. Of course, she winds up drunk before too long and embarrasses herself by losing one of the large flowers attached to her ugly gown. During the course of the evening, Addie sends champagne to the table, prompting the men to talk about how much class and taste Addie has. By the way, we also learn that Brad once dated Addie, and everyone thought they would be married until he came home with Deborah.

The second segment belongs to Sothern's Rita. She writes soap operas for the radio to help with the family's expenses. Her husband George is a teacher, a profession of which he's proud, but Rita wishes he could have a higher paying, more prestigious job, like the editor's position that has opened up at the radio station. She and George are entertaining her bosses, the Manleighs (Florence Bates and Hobart Cavanaugh), but the evening isn't going well because George would rather listen to the records his friend Addie has just sent to him; she's a former school mate of his. It's his birthday, after all, and Rita has forgotten (but Addie hasn't). By the end of the evening, George is fed up with all of the talk about the quality of writing for the radio serials and describes it as "bilge" to the Manleighs. Needless to say, he's not likely to be chosen for the job of editor.

I should mention that the Phipps family maid, Sadie, is played by Thelma Ritter. She brings her usual sarcastic charm to the role, and she gets some of the funniest lines in the movie. For example, Rita has purchased a maid's uniform for Sadie to wear for the evening, but Sadie would rather stay in the kitchen than have people see her in the outfit. In particular, she doesn't like the cap; she says it makes her look "like a lamb chop with pants on." Only Thelma Ritter could get away with a line like that.

The final segment involves the courtship of Lora Mae and Porter. It's a tempestuous relationship, to put it mildly. Lora Mae works in one of Porter's department stores, and he asks her out with the clear intention of making a pass. She, however, wants to get married and manages to keep stalling him date after date after date. He has also apparently had a relationship with Addie in the past; there's a large picture in a silver frame of Addie on his piano. Lora Mae tells him that she wants to be the kind of woman whose picture sits on a piano. They understand each other, and despite an apparent lack of romance between them, they marry. For most of the movie, whenever they are together, they're bickering. She even claims that if he's the husband who's run off with Addie, she won't be upset.

Before her marriage, Lora Mae lives with her mother and sister in a small home near the railroad tracks. It's so near the tracks, in fact, that whenever a train passes, the entire building shakes. This makes for a recurring sight gag that, I'll be honest, is funny every time it occurs. Ritter's Sadie is a friend of Lora Mae's mother, Ruby Finney (Connie Gilchrist), and even she gets to enjoy a cup of tea while the house rattles from the nearby train.

Of course, the picnic on the island eventually has to end and the women have to return home to find out whose husband has left. You can't have a formulaic structure without the payoff at the end. After all, the whole point is to build suspense for the audience and make us wonder which of the three men was the one who has abandoned his wife. Brad Bishop is the only one who's not home when the women get back to town. He's left a message saying he won't be home that night. Nevertheless, Deborah decides to go to the club with her friends as planned. It's pretty sad for Crain's character until one of the other men makes a surprising revelation. Well, actually, I don't think it's really all that surprising given the man in question.

A Letter to Three Wives won Joseph L. Mankiewicz two Oscars, one for his direction and the other for his screenplay. I know I've made it sound like this film is too formulaic in its structure, but to be honest, I suspect it was an incredibly novel idea in 1949. I don't even think we had the five-paragraph essay format back then; I believe it's a more recent development. Even though we've reached a point where there have been lots of films that follow a structure like this one, I still admire the cleverness with which Mankiewicz has linked the stories of these three women and the way he ensures that we never actually see Addie. She's only an arm or a puff of cigarette smoke or sometimes only a reference to someone at another table in a restaurant, but never a full person on screen. The cast, especially Sothern, who was never as fully appreciated as she should have been for her talent, are all very good. They make the different stories interesting to follow, and they make us hope that, at the end of the film, we will discover that Addie has been lying. It's poetic justice how it all turns out.

The Song of Bernadette (1943)

The Song of Bernadette, nominated for Best Picture of 1943, begins with an admonition that is repeated by one of the characters later in the movie: "For those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible." Bernadette Soubirous was the French peasant girl who claimed to have seen a vision of the Virgin Mary near a waste dump in the village of Lourdes in 1858. The film version of her life seems to accept the first half of the admonition at its start; it never truly questions Bernadette's faith in what she saw.

Jennifer Jones stars as Bernadette, and she brings a naive charm to the role. Bernadette admits that she isn't very smart--well, she calls herself stupid, actually--and that she doesn't truly understand what people mean when they talk to her about such concepts as the "holy trinity" or the "immaculate conception." Perhaps that's why it's tough for people to accept the story that she tells. It's really quite a simple tale. While she was waiting for her sister and a friend to return with some firewood, she felt the presence of someone else. She walks into a small niche in the hillside next to the dump, and there is a lady dressed in white talking to her. Bernadette kneels as if in deep thought and/or prayer and promises to return to the spot again.

When word of her vision gets out, everyone denounces her, even her mother and father. Her story is just too incredible to believe. The local priests and nuns all consider her to be blasphemous, and the city elders immediately try to have her declared insane in order to prevent her from returning to Massabeille, the spot where she first saw the lady in white. Oddly enough, though, her impoverished family suddenly has a change of fortune, with her father getting a good job and friends bringing them food just when they might have gone hungry. That doesn't mean that she or her family make a connection between their good luck and the vision, though. In fact, her mother (Anne Revere) tries to send Bernadette to live with her Aunt Bernarde (Blanche Yurka) to preserve the family's good name in Lourdes.

It's the aunt who makes the family reconsider Bernadette's story. The next time Bernadette wants to go to the dump, she is accompanied by her mother and her sister. We watch the gossip of the townspeople as they pass, but gradually, some of the other residents of Lourdes tag along. They watch as Bernadette kneels, but no one except for the young girl sees the woman in white. The crowds grow a little bigger each day, making Lourdes the subject of a great deal of ridicule in the French papers. It isn't until the lady tells Bernadette to drink from a spring that the first "miracle" occurs. You see, there's no spring there. Bernadette digs, but she finds only mud. It's after she is laughed at by a policeman and the crowds start to disperse that the trickle of the spring begins. A stone cutter gains his sight back after bathing his eyes in the water, and then a child regains the use of his legs after his mother places him in the spring. After these two events, a stream of people begins to make the trek to Lourdes. What's pretty remarkable is the film's depiction of the power of a message passed by word of mouth. Bernadette's story travels quickly throughout France, making it all the way to the Emperor and his wife.

Bernadette continues to be interrogated not only by the city officials, who eventually start to enjoy the money brought by increased tourism anyway, but she must also face a special church-sponsored commission. Despite numerous documents and repeated testimony from Bernadette and others, the church still claims that the results are inconclusive because the evidence is "insufficient." Given her notoriety, Bernadette cannot simply fade back into an ordinary life as a housemaid and wife as she had planned. She is recommended to a convent, and the latter part of the film depicts her time as a novice and then as a nun.

Jones won the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Bernadette. She is certainly consistent in her depiction of the peasant girl's naivete and faith. Bernadette seems very susceptible to influence from others around her like her parents or the leaders of the church, yet she's also steadfast in her belief in her visions. She never backs down from her claim, "I did see her." Perhaps it's that sense of faith--and a belief that such an innocent girl as Bernadette is incapable of lying--that makes people begin to support her. Jones is quite good at conveying both Bernadette's trusting nature and her tenacity when it comes to carrying out the requests made by the lady in her vision. We lost Jones recently, and it was very bittersweet to watch her in this role from the early part of her career.

The supporting cast features some standout performers. Charles Bickford plays Father Peyramale, the Dean of Lourdes who initially chastises Bernadette for lying about her vision but who ultimately becomes her most ardent supporter. The great Vincent Price has a small role as Vital Dutour, the town's prosecutor who is thwarted in every one of his efforts to put an end to the spectacle occurring on the edge of the town. Dutour, after professing his strong lack of faith throughout the movie, undergoes a conversion late in the film when he learns what has been ailing him for many years. Lee J. Cobb, almost unrecognizable here, plays Dr. Dozous, the physician who not only has to examine Bernadette to see if she is mentally ill, but he also has to deal with the patients who experience miraculous recoveries after bathing in the waters of the spring at Massabielle.

I have to note, in particular, the performance of Gladys Cooper as Sister Marie Therese. She begins the film as Bernadette's teacher, and she's a prime example of the stereotype of the harsh treatment nuns reportedly meted out. She's the one who first calls Bernadette "stupid," and she's one of the harshest critics of the story that Bernadette tells of her vision. She even claims that, in earlier times, Bernadette would have been burned as a heretic. Later in the film, when Bernadette enters the Convent of the Sisters of Nevers, it's Sister Marie Therese who has to show her around and keep an eye on her. She still doubts Bernadette's story and tells her so; she's also determined to make Bernadette suffer. Her conversion to being a believer is the most shocking and the most emotionally satisfying, and that's due in large part to Cooper's talents as an actress. She was deservedly nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role. She never won an Oscar, by the way, despite numerous good performances.

I am not really surprised at the earnestness with which this film approaches its subject matter. It just accepts that Bernadette's story is true; it offers no evidence to cast doubt on what she claims happened. Oh, certainly, there are characters who doubt her, but they are quickly dismissed when they have to confront the depth of faith that Bernadette has. By the film's end, you as a viewer are also expected, I think, to believe the story without question. Nowadays, I'm certain a film maker would be a bit more critical of the veracity of Bernadette's tale, but in 1943, you would probably have expected less questioning of religious faith. I don't really mean that as a criticism of the film; I just feel it is a product of its time.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

I doubt anyone watching the Academy Awards telecast for 2003 was surprised that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King received the Oscar for Best Picture. It had long been rumored that the members of the Academy planned to honor director Peter Jackson and his collaborators for their work on all three films by concentrating on the final film in the trilogy based upon the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. The Return of the King received a total of eleven Oscars that night, winning in every category in which it was nominated and tying it with Ben-Hur and Titanic for most Oscars for a single film. I'd have to say that The Return of the King is the only one of those three that deserved that much recognition. It's a remarkable and remarkably satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

Oddly enough, I think that's why the Academy was so stingy with nominations for The Two Towers. Its members didn't nominate Jackson for his direction in 2002 or he and his co-writers for the script of the middle film. I suppose they figured that if the first two parts of the trilogy were this good, why not "save" the awards until the final part was complete. That's really too bad; each film should be able to stand on its own, regardless of its place in the series, and I think they all do. It's also a shame that the Oscar victories for The Return of the King didn't include any for the cast. Thankfully, the Screen Actors Guild has an award for Best Ensemble, and the large cast of Jackson's epic received that honor. The success of a film or even a trilogy of films rests, at least in part, upon how convincing the performers are. We have to believe that they are truly in this fantastical world that has been created. They have to make it seem realistic even though it's completely fictional, and many times the actors in fantasy or science fiction films don't receive the credit that they deserve.

The title of the film should suggest one of the outcomes of the narrative. After proving himself to be a worthy leader through battle, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) does, indeed, assume the throne of Gondor. You sense that Middle Earth has, at last, a man who is ready to be a good and just king, someone who will maintain alliances with the other populations of Middle Earth, the elves and dwarfs, for example, as well as the other kingdoms. Aragorn is just too noble and decent of a character not to be that kind of monarch. If you contrast him with the previous steward of Gondor, who had become greedy with the power his position has afforded him and was apparently on the verge of madness if not fully insane, it's tough not to read some sort of political allegory to our own world at work there.

The rest of the original Fellowship also reach the end of their adventures. Frodo (Elijah Wood at his most fragile and sympathetic) and Samwise (Sean Astin) finally reach Mount Doom, but they are almost thwarted in their attempt to destroy the ring by the last-ditch efforts of Gollum (Andy Serkis). And Frodo himself has a hard time giving up the ring which seems to have take over possession of his soul at times. It's thanks to the intervention of Sam that Frodo is able to see how his behavior has almost led to his own destruction. In fact, much of the storyline involving Frodo and Sam is about the strength of their friendship, their need for each other. It's quite touching and more than a little homoerotic, to be honest.

Speaking of the homoerotic, the reunion of Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd), who are separated from each other for much of The Return of the King, is also more like the reunion of lovers than of mere friends. In fact, much of The Return of the King is about the bonds between men (or males, whichever is more appropriate for describing hobbits et al.). You can make of that what you will, but this film, more than the two earlier films, is about pairings of male characters: Samwise and Frodo, Merry and Pippin, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies)--figure out what you think it means if you don't agree with me. Even the one strong female character for much of the movie, Eowyn (Miranda Otto), assumes male armor so that she can participate in the battle over Minas Tirith. And then she tells Merry to stay with her; even in drag, you have two "male" characters together. Yes, I know you're going to suggest that it's about the bonds that men have with each other, and while I agree with you about that, I wonder what you might make of the professions of love between these male characters, especially the admission of "friendship" between the elf and the dwarf just before they go into battle. (I'm not the first one to note this tendency in the trilogy, by the way.)

Minas Tirith, by the way, is the site of the ultimate battle in the trilogy. It's the stronghold of the kings of Gondor, and if it falls, that could be the last dominion of man to fall under the control of Sauron, the Dark Lord. The battle scenes in The Return of the King are almost as spectacular as those in The Two Towers, with new creatures and weapons being used to break the defenses of the city carved out of a white mountain. It's during the battle scenes that Bloom's Legolas and Rhys-Davies' Gimli get to shine. Neither actor gets much to do throughout the trilogy except fight, but when a battle gets underway, they are kept quite busy. Legolas, in particular, seems never to miss with his bow and arrow. He can hit any object even when he's in motion. What Gimli lacks in stature, he makes up for in strength. He wields an ax like it's another arm, cutting a path through orcs or whatever other obstacle he faces. It's fun to watch the two of them keeping count of the numbers of enemies they've killed. You know it's all in jest anyway, this boyish competition between them.

Once again, I've left out too many details. I haven't talked about the thrill of watching green armies of the dead fighting under Aragorn's command in order to rid themselves of their guilt for being murderers and traitors under previous kings. I also haven't mentioned the scariest spider in the history of movies, the one that attacks Frodo--he does seem to have the worst luck--and that tries to attack Samwise. I hate spiders, and this one will give you nightmares. And I haven't described what I think is the most touching scene, the one where the newly crowned Aragorn bows down to the four brave hobbits after saying, "My friends, you bow to no one." It gets me every time.

I do wish the film had ended with Aragorn's coronation. The remainder of the movie feels a bit like an afterthought, but I know it's an attempt to tie up a few loose strands of the plot. If there is one good aspect to the last half hour or so, it's Frodo's wondering to himself, "How do you pick up the threads of an old life?" The truth is you can't. Once you've had an adventure like he's had, lasting thirteen months of his young life, there's no way to go back to a previous way of living without some unease. You've been changed too deeply and profoundly, and perhaps that's the final lesson we should take from the trilogy, most especially from The Return of the King. We are the product of our experiences, and we have to acknowledge them as a part of our growth and development. Perhaps that's why Frodo adds his own story to the book that Bilbo has written, "There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Tale." There's even room left for Samwise to contribute his version of events, and we have space as viewers to imagine what our own lives might be like had we ever encountered such a world as the one Jackson and his many, many collaborators--just watch how long it takes the credits to roll--have given us.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, nominated for Best Picture of 2002, is the darkest of the trilogy of films based upon the books by J.R.R. Tolkien. Viewers who have seen The Fellowship of the Ring already know the objective is to destroy the ring being carried by Frodo Braggins (Elijah Wood), forcing him and several other hobbits, dwarfs, elves, and men to travel across Middle Earth toward the fires of Mount Doom. The problem is that the forces of evil under the command of Sauron, the Dark Lord, are even more determined (and more numerous) in their desire to prevent the forces of good from achieving their goal.

I have to admit that The Two Towers may be my favorite part of the trilogy. It grapples with issues of warfare and courage and bravery in ways that I find fascinating to watch. We get to see Frodo attempt to resist the power of ring as it slowly begins to weaken his resolve. We also are witness to the loyalty of his friend Samwise (Sean Astin), who does everything he can to protect Frodo from the forces of evil and from the plotting of the creature Gollum (Andy Serkis, just brilliant). And we get to see the interaction between Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd), the two other hobbits, after they are separated from the rest of the fellowship. They're really around to provide comic relief, but they have some interesting insights to share about the need to get involved in global politics, such as "you're a part of this world." Oddly enough, they have to share these thoughts with a band of tree herders led by Treebeard, a sort of walking tree. It makes more sense when you watch the film.

The middle episode of the film series also deepens our understanding of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), the man who would become king. He is a reluctant heir apparent, perhaps unsure of his ability to rule. Yet he has support from the other members of the Fellowship such as the elf Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), who tell him that they will always follow him. He gets to demonstrate his loyalty to his beloved Arwen (Liv Tyler), especially when you consider how much she is willing to sacrifice--immortality, no small treasure to give up--to be with him. Of course, he also has a suitor in the guise of Eowyn (Miranda Otto), the neice of King Theoden of Rohan (Bernard Hill) who finds Aragorn to be quite the object of admiration. Everyone recognizes Aragorn's potential to be a king, except (apparently) Aragorn himself. Mortensen does fine work in The Two Towers showing the torment his character faces in trying to determine what course his life should take.

However, despite all of the character development of the members of the Fellowship, the most intriguing character in The Two Towers is the creature Gollum. What an intriguing psychological case study Gollum would make if you could get him to be still long enough to be studied. He possessed the ring for many years before it fell into hobbit hands, and he wants it back. Like everyone else who "owns" the ring, he thinks of it as "precious" to him. Gollum was apparently human until the possession of the ring turned him into the hideous creature that he has become. When he volunteers to lead Frodo and Samwise to the lands of Mordor and Mount Doom, you understand why Samwise is initially reluctant. He doesn't trust Gollum, nor should he.

You see, Gollum has a split personality. At times, he is Gollum, the scheming creature whose only goal is to obtain the ring again. Gollum is capable of murder, and he is forcefully single-minded as he plots the demise of both Samwise and Frodo. At other times, he is Smeagol, the human he used to be, with all of the requisite guilt and indecision that humans can have. Smeagol wants to be good and even calls Frodo "Master" as a sign of respect for the carrier of the ring. What's most chilling, though, is that he can also be Gollum and Smeagol simultaneously. Watching him carry on a conversation with the two halves of his personality is fascinating. There are times you aren't quite sure who is in command of the physical body until an action or a glance reveals who is in charge at the moment. It's quite a remarkable performance on the part of Serkis, who doesn't appear on the screen himself but whose alter ego was created through motion capture technology.

By the way, Gollum is also quite the drama queen. He is prone to outbursts at the oddest moments, and don't tie a rope around him unless you want to hear constant complaining. You'd think he was being tortured again (which he was under the forces of Sauron). And watch how he overreacts (or overacts) when Samwise cooks the rabbits Gollum has killed; he behaves as if the hobbit has ruined every meal for eternity. It's all a part of his plan to elicit sympathy so that he can win back the ring that he covets. And it's one of the reasons that the character is so vivid in the memory after the film ends.


The Two Towers is not primarily about character development, though, even though we learn a great deal about the various members of the Fellowship and their allies. No, it's really a war movie with an epic battle as its centerpiece, the fight at Helms Deep. Much of the film is a prelude to the battle, setting up what promises to be an astonishing show of special effects (which lives up to and surpasses its own promise, by the way). The forces of evil have been growing in strength and number, and they plan to attack the kingdom of Rohan. The king has already evacuated everyone to the stronghold of Helms Deep, a fortress carved out of a mountain that has proven impenetrable in battles past. It's little surprise that the fortress's protection is going to be tested.

The battle itself consumes a large portion of the last third of the film. The men of Rohan and their colleagues, as well as elfin archers who have come to carry on an old alliance between elves and man, can only manage to hold off the orcs for a brief period of time. The orcs have been tipped off to the one weak spot of Helms Deep, and they use it to their advantage. There's a lot of gore and blood as hundreds on both sides are killed. I'd be hard pressed to think of another battle that is more gruesome in its details than this one. Yet it's also one of the most impressive uses of computer-generated imagery ever put on film. Just watching the flood of orcs coming through the gate, for example, will make you catch your breath.

What's interesting is that the battle scenes at Helms Deep are intercut with scenes of the journey taken by Samwise and Frodo and with Merry and Pippin watching as Treebeard and his fellow trees attack the tower where Saruman (Christopher Lee) resides. There's such a flurry of activity in the last half hour of the film, in particular, including the arrival of Gandalf (Ian McKellan) with additional troops to help fight on the side of the Fellowship. No, he's not dead, but explaining how he survived means I'd have to talk about that belroc thing again, and I'm just not up for that. Besides, you should just be glad to have him on your side, fighting as vigorously as the young men.

I recall watching The Two Towers in a theater and feeling so anxious that I would have to wait another year to see how the trilogy ended. That's what you want in a film series, I think, eager anticipation on the part of fans. Some were undoubtedly turned off by the emphasis on violence that permeates this middle film, but I think you have to witness just how far each side is willing to go in order to understand the importance of the overall struggle. As Samwise puts it, "there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for." If Helms Deep is a primary example of that mentality in this film, then you realize it will likely take the annihilation of one of the sides for the other to be victorious, and that's why I was so anxious to see The Return of the King.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, a nominee for Best Picture of 2001, was the first in a trilogy of films adapted from the novels by J.R.R. Tolkien about hobbits, elves, dwarfs, and men and their various alliances. It's an exciting start to a series of movies that challenge viewers with their epic scope and interlaced plots. I'll readily admit that I have never read the books on which this and the other two films are based. I did read The Hobbit when I was a teenager because it was given to me by an aunt, but I chose to read lots of other books besides the rest of the Tolkien ones. I say that in order to point out that I cannot vouch for the fidelity with which director Peter Jackson and his collaborators have tackled the material. I can only state that he has made an engrossing, thrilling trio of films, and that The Fellowship of the Ring does an excellent job of setting up the action for the remaining two films.

I can't imagine providing a concise summary of what happens in this film, so I'll try to stick to just some of the main themes and moments. The focus, of course, is on a ring, a remarkable piece of jewelry since it gives you control over a set of rings that had been forged for elves, dwarfs, and men. In other words, it gives you total power. Naturally, you want such a ring either to be destroyed or to be in the hands of someone who can be trusted. Unfortunately, it first belonged to Sauron, the Dark Lord, and he's used it for evil purposes. Through a strange series of events, it has wound up in the hands of a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins (Ian Holm), and he's ready to retire from the adventures he's had and write a book. He entrusts the ring to his nephew Frodo (Elijah Wood), who inevitably faces the task of finding a safe place for the ring.

Through the intervention of a wizard, Gandalf (the remarkable Ian McKellan), Frodo sets off on an adventure that will take him through much of Middle Earth, the mythical land described in the Tolkien books. He has company on his journey, first from three other hobbits: Samwise (Sean Astin), Pippin (Billy Boyd), and Merry (Dominic Monaghan). Hobbits are, by nature, peaceful folk who like to eat and drink and smoke; they are unaccustomed to having adventures, so this band of four almost immediately gets into difficulties. For instance, there's a troop of scary creatures called the Nazgul after them in order to kill Frodo and take custody of the ring for Sauron, who's making a comeback now that the ring has been rediscovered. So far, he's only a large eye, but with possession of the ring, he'll apparently be reconstituted as his old evil self.

There's also an evil wizard, Gandalf's counterpart, called Saruman (Christopher Lee) who is in league with Sauron. It's obvious that the hobbits are going to need assistance if they are going to make it past all of these obstacles and get to Rivendell, the home of the fairies. Their first guide is Stryder (Viggo Mortensen), a human who's later revealed to be Aragorn, the heir to the kingdom of Gondor, but we can't get to that just yet. After finally making it to Rivendell, Frodo listens as a meeting of elves, dwarfs, and men devolves into a debate as to how to handle the powerful ring he's brought there. After it's decided that it should be destroyed by throwing it into the fires of Mount Doom, another argument ensues as to who should be entrusted to carry the ring. After hearing enough of the bickering, Frodo says he will do it. The other hobbits volunteer to travel with him, as do Legolas (Orlando Bloom), an elf with a talent for using a bow; Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), a dwarf with a temper and a strong ax; Aragorn, of course; and another human named Boromir (Sean Bean), who also has a claim to the throne of Gondor. Gandalf will also join them, completing what Elrond (Hugo Weaving), the king of the fairies, dubs the Fellowship of the Ring.

I have had to gloss over a great deal of information, of course, such as Aragorn's romance with one of the elves, a beauty named Arwen (Liv Tyler). And I've had to skip over the wizards battle between Gandalf and Saruman; it's quite a bloody fight, though. There's also the spectacular sequence involving a giant monster made of fire (the belroc?) that lives in the mines once run by the dwarfs and that seems to have killed Gandalf in their fight together. The remaining band of the Fellowship also encounter Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), an elf witch who shows Frodo the future that might occur if he fails in his quest. It involves the destruction of his homeland, the shire where the hobbits live. It's that glimpse of the future that seemingly convinces Frodo that he must take on the burden alone, and he leaves just before a battle with some vicious looking creatures called uruks or orcs or something like that. I never quite figured out the difference.

And, to be honest, unless you're a huge fan of the books, I think at some point you give up caring about all of the details and just get swept up in the film. You'd have to keep a scorecard to remember everyone who might be important. And the different relationships between the various residents of Middle Earth are just too complex to discern most of the time. Once you give up worrying about that stuff, you can then enjoy watching the Fellowship encounter the various obstacles along the way to achieving Frodo's goal. You'd have to expect that a battle between good and evil for the possession of an object like the ring will not be handled quickly or simply. There are numerous confrontations, and each one is depicted with great intensity. The film's creators have managed to cram a lot into the film even if it does clock in at more than three hours long.

I'd like to point out the beauty of the landscape through which Frodo and his friends travel. The film was shot in New Zealand, and Jackson has made effective use of the mountains and swamps and forests and rivers and green expanses of land here. Each area has a distinct "look" as well. For example, Rivendell is bathed in light, casting a glow on everyone there. When making the trek through the mountains, by comparison, the Fellowship encounters mostly darkness, almost too dark to see. When they are battling the uruks in the forest near the end of the film, Aragon and the others are presented in naturalistic light. It's clever cinematography throughout the film.

I haven't yet discussed the image that lingers with you after watching the first film in the trilogy, but it's just how much power that the ring has. When Frodo accidentally slips it on his finger, he becomes invisible. However, he's still able to see everything around him in a sort of blurry way. It brings into focus the evil creatures like the Nazgul, though, making them easier to see. And the ring has a curious appeal to almost everyone who encounters it. Gandalf is afraid of the ring, perhaps sensing its power over its wearer. Boromir covets the ring, as does Galadriel. Frodo has gotten an early glimpse of just how hypnotic the ring is when his uncle Bilbo has become almost a snarling demon when he's refused a chance to touch the ring again. It comes as little surprise when, late in the film, Frodo says, "I wish the ring had never come to me." It is quite a burden to carry.

I'm sure most people don't go to a movie like this for the acting. You're meant to be caught up in the technical achievements of the film, and it would be hard not to be impressed by what Jackson and his crew have accomplished. They've created places and creatures in a seamless way that makes you feel as if this world were truly real. However, thanks to performances like McKellan's and Mortensen's and Wood's, you are also able to care about the characters and desire that they complete this arduous task before them. McKellan was the only member of the cast ever to be nominated for an acting Oscar, and it was for The Fellowship of the Ring. He lost, sadly, but he brings such a sense of humor and a few moments of incredible power to his role that you wish he had more screen time. I also admire what Mortensen and Wood (and the others) do here, but they are all allowed to shine even more in the subsequent films in the series.

Best Picture of 1996

The Winner: The English Patient.

The Other Nominees: Fargo, Jerry Maguire, Secrets & Lies, and Shine.


My Choice: As much as I have slowly come to appreciate The English Patient, I'd still have to choose Secrets & Lies from this list. As painful as it is to watch sometimes, Mike Leigh's film is brilliant in the ways that it captures family dynamics. It also makes some very subtle points about issues of race in modern-day Great Britain and about some lingering beliefs about the class structure. I am still in awe of Brenda Blethyn's performance as the woman who discovers a secret from her past. It's one of the best performances of the 1990s, male or female. This may be a small film, but it's a worthy choice thanks to the emotional honesty with which it portrays the repercussions of the choices we make.

Shine (1996)

I have to admit that I didn't really admire Shine, a nominee for Best Picture of 1996, very much. To me, it was handled more like a disease-of-the-week TV movie than an Oscar-worthy film. I also didn't think Geoffrey Rush was as strong in his performance as all of the awards laden upon him might suggest. He doesn't even give the best performance in this movie. That honor belongs to the talented Noah Taylor, who plays the same character as a teenager and young man. If anyone deserved attention for his acting skill, it's Taylor, not Rush, whose portrayal of a psychologically damaged man is really as tic-laden and phony as the performance given by Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.

Rush plays the older version of David Helfgott, a brilliant pianist who has suffered a nervous breakdown thanks to the pressure placed upon him by his overbearing father (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his professors in college. He's been shuttled around from institutions to the homes of well-meaning but quickly overwhelmed friends, and he's finally wound up in a place all his own. He's wandering lost in the rain as the film begins and stops at a restaurant named Moby's. The waiter and waitress find him amusing--he chatters incessantly--and one of them takes him home. He comes back on another night because the restaurant has a piano. He starts to play and becomes a bit of a phenomenon, particularly when people learn that he's the David Helfgott they heard about years earlier.

Ah, yes, years earlier. We actually have three actors playing David Helfgott because much of the film, more than half, is really a flashback to his childhood and young adulthood. The youngest David is played by Alex Rafalowicz, and he's very good at playing a timid boy who's forced to play the piano. He tries to win a talent competition with some Chopin, but the piano keeps moving away from him thanks to his vigorous pounding of the keyboard. One of the judges, Ben Rosen (Nicholas Bell), decides that the boy has talent and wants to teach him. At first, David's father refuses because he doesn't want anyone else teaching David. However, once he relents, David starts to win lots of contests.

The resistance on the part of Pete Helfgott is apparently due to the loss of his family in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. He's fearful that if David is too successful, he'll leave for college or a successful career, and just the thought of his leaving is enough to send Peter into a violent rage. In fact, the older man has a lot of anger management issues, but his wife and children tend to stand by with shameful looks on their faces whenever he has one of his fits. When David is accepted to a college in London and given a scholarship that would pay for his eduction, Peter is at his angriest and, after beating David again, disowns him. Mueller-Stahl, who is always good at playing morally conflicted men, is very strong in a role that requires him to be brutal at times and tender at other times.

Too much of the plot revolves around the Rachmaninoff Concerto No. 3, a notoriously difficult piece of music to perform on the piano. David's father tells him that he has to learn this piece, but his first music teacher, Mr. Rosen, thinks it's far too advanced. When he gets to college, he decides to tackle the piece himself, and one of his professors, John Gielgud's Cecil Parkes, assists him. Although Professor Parkes is often as tough on David as the boy's father was, at least, he's not violent; he's just gruff in barking out orders. It's when he plays the Rachmaninoff piece in concert that David has the breakdown. It's an intense piece of music to be sure, and the sweat drips from the boy as he pounds the keys. It's a remarkable performance at the piano, but it drains him too much.

I suppose I could claim that playing Rachmaninoff apparently drives you mad, but anyone watching the film would know that it's the residual effect of his father's brutality that has caused David's breakdown. He's tried to please his father by playing the one piece of music that was presented as the greatest challenge, and it's overwhelmed him when he accomplishes it. David has just exhausted himself. He winds up having to undergo electroshock therapy and being institutionalized. This portion of the film has Taylor portraying David, and he's quite remarkable. There's an almost feral quality to his performance at times, like an animal that's been wounded too often yet still wants someone to care for him. He also is stunning in the centerpiece of the film, the performance of the Rachmaninoff. You can understand how that piece would drain anyone after watching Taylor at the keys.

The adult David (Rush again) isn't allowed to play music while he's in the hospital. It's through the intervention of one of the volunteers that he leaves the hospital to live with her. He's had older female patrons before, including a novelist who encouraged him to go to London to study and kept in touch with him until her death. Unfortunately, David isn't quite ready for the outside world, particularly given his fondness for pawing at women's breasts at the most inopportune times. He can't even manage to keep his clothes on all of the time. There are few sights as disconcerting as watching a naked Geoffrey Rush jumping on a trampoline, let me tell you. And the overall performance, from my perspective, has little to offer by way of insight into David's life. All Rush has to do is be a bit twittery and talk rapidly and chain smoke and smile and engage in behavior that's inappropriate for public occasions. I just didn't see anything special in it. Almost any actor could have played the part and done just as well.

Shine certainly has its heart in the right place. It's the kind of movie designed to make you feel good when things turn out better for a character who's had a difficult life. I, too, am happy to learn that Helfgott married a wonderful woman, played in the film by the fantastic Lynn Redgrave, and who would begrudge him some of the success he's achieved late in life? Still, this isn't new territory, and it isn't presented in a way that is unique or different. The only thing that makes this story stand out from so many others like it is the fact that the protagonist is Australian. Other than that, we should all be familiar with the story of the tortured artist who has to come back from a tremendous setback. It's that cliched of a movie plotline by now.

Mildred Pierce (1945)

Man, do I love this movie. Mildred Pierce was nominated for Best Picture of 1945, and it represents a stunning achievement in several film genres: film noir, melodrama, romance, crime film, and the so-called "women's picture." Every member of the cast is first rate, with Joan Crawford as the title character demonstrating why she fully deserved the Oscar for Best Actress she won that year. It's one of my favorite movies from the 1940s, and I was delighted to watch it again for this project.

The film starts with gunshots and the death of Monte Beragon (Zachary Scott), Mildred's husband. We don't see the shooter, but Monte's last words are a cry for Mildred. Someone leaves the scene of the crime in a car, and then we cut to Mildred in a fur coat and hat walking along a pier, contemplating suicide by jumping into the ocean. She's stopped by a police officer and starts to walk away when an old friend, Wally Fay (Jack Carson), asks her to have a drink in his bar. She convinces Wally, who's always been attracted to her, to go with her to the beach house. He doesn't realize he's being set up as Monte's murder, so he goes along with her.

When the police show up, they discover the body, and they begin rounding up suspects and witnesses. Mildred is the one the lead detective waits to interrogate last. He first tells her that the police know that her first husband, Bert Pierce (Bruce Bennett), is guilty of the crime and that she doesn't have to answer any questions. Mildred, though, is desperate to share and so begins our first flashback to the events that have led to this night.

Wally and Bert were partners in a real estate business until Wally ousted Bert. Mildred, too, gets rid of Bert when she realizes that he's been having an affair with another woman. Needing to support herself and her two daughters, Mildred gets a job working as a waitress. She also bakes cakes as a side venture, and before long, she has ambitions to open her own restaurant. She gets some help from Wally and makes Mildred's a huge success. Soon she has opened several other branches and is making lots of money for her family.

I've not talked much about Mildred's daughters yet, but only one of them is truly a focus of the narrative. The younger daughter, Kay (Jo Ann Marlowe), is conveniently killed off by a bout of pneumonia. That leaves Veda (Ann Blyth), quite possibly the most ungrateful child in history. Mildred wants the best for Veda and is willing to go to any lengths to get the money to buy Veda whatever she wants, perhaps because she still fills remorse for Kay's death. Mildred will sacrifice her own dignity if it benefits Veda. For example, she won't let Veda see her waitress's uniform out of fear that she will think Mildred has degraded herself. Well, that's exactly what Veda feels, and she tells her mother so. How the daughter of a poor family and now a working single mother can be such a snob is a testament to just how much Mildred has spoiled her.

Mildred has other problems too. She's wooed by the man who owned the property that became the first Mildred's restaurant. That would be Monte, and they have fun for a while. However, she's not in love with him. She suspects that he has intentions regarding her daughter, and she warns him to stay away from Veda. He's also been taking money from her because she feels grateful to him for helping to get the restaurant business started, so when she pays him for what she claims is the last time, he says that he hates kitchens and cooks like herself. Mildred is back to being alone.

Then it's time to deal with Veda, who has become quite a monster with an appetite for expensive goods to match. Veda marries and then blackmails a wealthy young man by lying about being pregnant. Mildred disowns her, and Veda starts singing racy material in Wally's bar down at the pier. After realizing that Veda will only be happy with the trappings of wealth she's seen with Monte, Mildred asks him to marry. He agrees if he gets a share of the business, so Mildred once again swallows her pride and does something for Veda's benefit. However, it isn't long before Monte and Veda are having an affair--a rather kinky take on the notion of "incest" that you wouldn't expect in a film from this time period--and Monte and Wally are forcing Mildred out of business.

Periodically throughout these scenes, we get reminded that Mildred is in the police station answering questions. She even confesses to the crime, which only prompts the detective to start asking for more details. We get all of the necessary information about what happened the night of the murder, including the identity of the killer and the motive for the shooting. It's hardly a surprise that the culprit is Veda, who shot Monte in a fit after he said he would never marry her. When Mildred finally says, "I can't get you out of this, Veda" and calls the police, all you can do is add, "It's about time."

As I said earlier, the supporting cast is stellar. As much as you come to despise Veda, you have to admire the passion that Blyth brings to the part. She is excellent in a role that could have easily been over-the-top. Carson is just witty and relaxed her; he's the perfect opportunist, always looking for a way that an outcome could benefit him. Even Butterfly McQueen shows up as Lottie, Mildred's maid, and manages to get a couple of good lines in. And I love Eve Arden, who plays the small part of Mildred's restaurant manager and friend. No one could deliver a line like Arden could. One of my favorites is when she accuses Wally of undressing her with his eyes: "Leave something on me. I might catch cold." She's a delight whenever she's on the screen.

Still, it's Crawford's movie, and no one else could have played this part with the same go-for-broke gusto that Crawford brings to it. While she had been known before Mildred Pierce for her work in glamorous roles with expensive gowns and elaborate make-up, here she's allowed to look (almost) like a regular working class woman would look. There are still some shoulder pads in the business attire she wears at times--and I began to suspect that they get larger as the film's narrative progresses--but they are not the focus of Mildred's identity like they might have been in an earlier Crawford picture. Oddly enough, I think that Crawford is perhaps at her most beautiful in this film, despite not being costumed in expensive fabrics and jewels.

By the end of the film, we are, I think, completely on Mildred's side. Had it turned out that she was Monte's killer, I suspect most of us would have forgiven her. We would have understood what she has gone through in her life, and we would have allowed her a moment of anger and retribution for all of the pain that she has suffered. Not many actresses could make us feel that measure of sympathy, but Crawford was one of the best.

Captain Blood (1935)

Captain Blood is the film that made Errol Flynn a star, and for that, we should be very grateful. Did anyone ever seem to have as much fun on screen as Flynn did? He's asked to portray a pirate in Captain Blood, and his performance led to him being cast in a series of action films, many of them being of the swashbuckling variety. He would become one of the most reliable stars in films like this, and it's easy to see why from his performance here.

It's 1685 in England, and Dr. Peter Blood (Flynn) is awakened in the middle of the night to tend to a man who has been injured in a battle between the forces of King James II and a group of rebels who wish to replace him on the throne with his rival, the Duke of Monmouth. Blood, being a dedicated member of his profession, goes to help but is not interested in taking sides politically. He is arrested for helping a rebel and held for months awaiting trial. When he appears in court, the judge attempts to prevent him from mounting a defense on his own behalf. He and dozens of other men are found guilty, and the judge (a cartoonish villain if ever there were one) hisses out the judgment.

Instead of carrying out the sentence of hanging that comes with a charge of treason, the king decides instead to ship the convicted men to the English colony at Port Royal in the Caribbean. There they will perform ten years of labor to the highest bidder. The ones who work on the island's sugar plantation will also be subject to the brutality of Col. Bishop (Lionel Atwill, who gets more screen time as the main cartoonish villain), the most notoriously callous slave owner on the island. Bishop, at first, refuses to purchase Blood because of the insolence he displays, so his niece Arabella (Oliva de Havilland) buys the doctor instead to save him from having to work in the mines of Port Royal. For the rest of the film, Arabella keeps doing “favors” for Blood despite her repeated attempts to remind him of his station in life. It doesn’t take much of a detective to figure out where their relationship might be headed.

Life on the plantation is difficult. The men work long hours and are given little food and rest. They even have to push a series of large interconnected wheels to grind sugar cane; it’s a device that Rube Goldberg couldn’t have imagined. If someone attempts to escape, he is whipped and then branded on his face with an FT (for "Fugitive Traitor"). The whipping post is so prominently featured during this segment of the film that it almost becomes a supporting character, and the hot iron with the FT initials comes at the audience almost as if we were watching a 3-D movie. Only through becoming personal doctor to the island's governor is Blood spared. Rather than work at hard labor, he instead has to keep the governor's gout in check, no small feat considering how much of a hypochondriac the governor (George Hassell, nicely comic) seems to be. His new job also provides Blood with frequent access to Arabella, whom he finds attractive enough to kiss only to have her slap him for presuming that a slave like himself could touch a lady. Of course, she doesn’t slap him immediately after he starts kissing her, so….

When a Spanish pirate ship attacks Port Royal, Blood and some of his fellow prisoners take advantage of the distraction to escape. They cleverly steal the pirate ship and decide to become pirates themselves. They even develop some rules of piracy to follow, covering such items as taking no female prisoners and how much to compensate someone for the loss of a limb. (The price varies depending upon which limb you've lost, even which side of the body it's on.) After a series of successful raids on Spanish and English ships, depicted in a montage of images, Blood and his men join up with a French pirate, Levasseur (Basil Rathbone at his oiliest), and his men to make even more money.

The French pirates attack an English ship on their way to a rendezvous with Blood's ship, and one of the prisoners they take is Arabella. Blood fights Levasseur for possession of Arabella because he knows that the French pirate will not follow the rules of piracy Blood and his men have adopted. Pirates can be like that, I suppose, and you know what that means for Arabella. Of course, Blood wins, and he tries to convince her that she can have all of the jewels she wants from their treasure. She refuses him, but he counters that he now owns her the way she once owned him. Naturally (at least in terms of the movies), she is attracted to him--we have to have a love interest, after all—a fact that Lord Willoughby (Henry Stephenson, reliable as always), a fellow passenger on the English ship who is now a prisoner of the pirates, notices. As Willoughby tells her, "He's not such a bad fellow for a pirate." Indeed.

Willoughby has a surprise for Blood. King James has been replaced on the throne by William and Mary, who have pardoned the pirates for their crimes and given Blood a commission in the Royal Navy. And it's just in the nick of time, for the French have arrived in Port Royal and are attempting to take the city away from the English colonists there. How fortuitous for the English colonialists. Blood has to try to save the colony and defeat the French, and the film has its last chance to show a powerful battle between ships.

The special effects are particularly worthy of note. The battle sequences are spectacular, especially the moments involving Blood’s ship taking over a Spanish ship. Knowing that the ships are all miniatures (not toy boats, mind you, just smaller scale versions of the real things) doesn’t detract from the tension these battles build. The stunt work is also remarkably well done, and the highlight is undoubtedly the sword fight between Flynn’s Blood and Rathbone’s Levasseur. The success of an adventure movie depends a great deal on scenes like these, and this film provides a nice variety of action interspersed with the quieter or more humorous moments.

Captain Blood is a lot of fun to watch. Given the number of battles and the amount of historical detail crammed into it, you'll be surprised at how quickly it moves. Flynn is fantastic, a true star, although I do wish someone could have given him a better haircut. He always seems stuck with some sort of pageboy in his better films. He and de Havilland have a real chemistry, and they would appear together in several more films (and allegedly become lovers off-screen as well) over the new few years. They are both good here, but it's really Flynn and that smile of his that makes Captain Blood so enjoyable. Even when he's in the heat of battle, nothing seems to stop him from having fun (and from making this movie fun for us viewers as well).

Footnote: The year 1935 was the last year that the Academy allowed write-in votes and the last year that it announced the runners-up in each category. Captain Blood received votes in three categories in which it had not been officially nominated: Best Director, Best Adaptation, and Best Scoring. In fact, the film's director, the great Michael Curtiz, came in second in the voting, behind that year's winner, John Ford for The Informer, and ahead of the two other official nominees.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production and Best Sound Recording

Dead End (1937)

Watching the movie version of Dead End must be an experience similar to watching the stage production upon which it is based. The makers of the film have chosen to create what is basically a single stage for all of the action of the movie, and we open and close the film with shots that carry us into and out of the portion of the street that will be our focus for about ninety minutes. The film also stays relatively true to the stage-bound conventions of time, with all of the events occurring within a single day. Dead End doesn't call attention to these trappings, of course, but it's pretty easy to recognize the stage origins of the movie once you realize that we aren't going to leave the neighborhood.

The film has several different plotlines. Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart), a notorious gangster, has returned to his old neighborhood because he misses his mother (played by Marjorie Main in a rather uncharacteristically subdued performance) and his former girlfriend Francey (Claire Trevor in a small but memorable role). He's trying to avoid being recognized, and he hopes that his recent plastic surgery will help to keep him from being arrested. He got his start in a gang in this East Side area of New York, and he's disappointed when he finds out that his mother doesn't want to see him and that Francey has become a prostitute.

Drina (the great Sylvia Sidney) is on strike, part of a group of employees demanding better wages from their employer. She's also trying to keep an eye on her younger brother, Tommy (Billy Halop), who's quickly growing up and becoming too involved in criminal activity. She's in love with Dave (Joel McCrea), an architect who grew up in the neighborhood and who can't find any steady work in his profession and is reduced to the occasional jobs painting restaurants. Drina's jealous of Dave's friendship with the wealthy Kay (Wendy Barrie). However, he seems more intrigued by the prospect of wealth that Kay represents rather than Kay herself; she already has a rich man who's keeping her anyway.

And then there's the Dead End Kids, one of the main reasons to watch this film. They're really the beginnings of a street gang, and they terrorize almost anyone who bothers them. And a lot of people seem to bother them: the rich kid who lives in the new high-rise, the doorman (played by, of all people, Ward Bond) for the building where the wealthy people of the neighborhood live, even each other at times. Tommy is the apparent leader of the gang, but really, it's a rather loose confederation of friends who have nothing better to do than hang out all day long and get into trouble. They're saddled with some odd nicknames at times, like Spit (because he likes to spit) and T.B. (because, well, he's been diagnosed with tuberculosis), and they aren't portrayed by the strongest actors, but there's such a vitality to these kids that it's no wonder they became stars in their own right after this film.

The movie tries to depict how the rich and poor can live next to each other yet have little contact. The rich folks live in a fancy apartment building next to what might charitably be called a tenement slum, so they can, literally, look down on the poor people who are their neighbors. The wealthy people in the high rise have parties that are loud enough to keep them from hearing the gunshots that occasionally ring out below them. The poor aren't allowed into the complex; that's why Ward Bond is there. In fact, it's only a fluke that the poor see the rich people enter and exit the building. The wealthy folks are having to use the service entrance while the front of the building is being completed. When the rich and poor do intermingle, the results are often disastrous. When the rich kid meets with the Dead End Kids, for example, he winds up with his clothes torn and his watch stolen. When Kay tries to find Dave in his tenement building, she's repulsed by the rats and filth she encounters there. The implicit message is that rich and poor do not belong together.

I suspect that Dave's speech about how people get used to fighting in the tenement was meant by playwright Sidney Kingsley and screenwriter Lillian Hellman to be a plea for tolerance and understanding. Are people really so heavily influenced by the circumstances surrounding them? For example, had Francey no other choice after Baby Face left her than to turn to a life of prostitution? Does Tommy seem destined to a term in jail or, at least, juvenile hall because he's gotten too accustomed to a life that seems to encourage him to commit crime? Is there ever a way out of a life of poverty? Can someone escape? There are no easy answers to questions like these in a movie like Dead End, but perhaps the title itself gives you a clue as to the thinking of the writers.

No one is truly the "star" of this movie. It's an ensemble film at heart. Bogart would become one of the biggest stars in films, but here he's primarily used to show the long-term effects of a life of crime. Sidney is a luminous presence in this film, and she is very touching in the scenes where Drina tries to convince her delinquent brother that they should try to escape. McCrea is meant to represent the moral conscience of the film, and he pulls it off rather effectively. He certainly stands out among most of the rest of the characters by always trying to make the right choices.

However, it's the kids you'll likely remember the longest. They are having the most fun in the movie. They get to jump in the water of the East River and swim almost every day despite seeming to be dirtier when they get back on dry land. They get to play pranks on each other and on other people. They manage to initiate new members from time to time, and they even get to arrange fights with rival gangs in the area. They also talk a lot, using the kind of slang and dialects that must have been grating to adult ears in 1937. They also get to share tales of their everyday existence in ways that can actually be endearing at times. It's no wonder that these charismatic young men are the real reason to see Dead End nowadays.

Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Supporting Actress (Claire Trevor), Best Art Direction, and Best Cinematography

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Goodbye, Mr. Chips takes place at the Brookfield School where the 83-year-old Mr. Chipping (played by Robert Donat, the winner for Best Actor), nicknamed "Chips" by his wife Katherine (Greer Garson in her first major film role), has not missed a first day assembly in 58 years (even though he has been retired for the past 15 years). The start of a new school year has always been exciting for Mr. Chips, and despite being sick, he makes his way to the assembly hall only to find the doors already locked. After he meets the new history master and prepares some tea and cakes in case any of the boys should stop by his home, he falls asleep in a chair by the fireplace.

Presumably, what follows would be the dream that he has. It covers much of his career at the school starting with his first day in 1870 when a clean-shaven Mr. Chippings arrives with no previous teaching experience. His first time in the classroom is disastrous as he lets the boys get out of hand with their disruptive questions and continual interruptions. They physically attack him just as the headmaster arrives, prompting a stern warning to Mr. Chips to enforce discipline if he plans to maintain control of his classroom. He does so in a rather harsh fashion, punishing the entire class by making them miss a crucial soccer match. For years afterward, he remains relatively isolated from the friendly banter that often accompanies teacher-student relations at the school.

It's at the insistence of fellow teacher Staefel (Paul Henreid, a few years before Casablanca) that Mr. Chips agrees to go on a walking tour of the Alps. He meets Katherine in the mountains, and they begin an awkward if charming relationship. He is, admittedly, terrified of women, but she is such a calming presence that he cannot resist wanting to spend more time with her. She is the first person who seems to understand him. She too is touring the continent, but she and her friend are on bicycles. By accident, Chips and Katherine meet again as they depart from a boat that has been floating down the Danube, and she convinces him to waltz with her that night at a party in an enormous ballroom. The next morning, she has to depart by train, and he goes to the station with her, running after the train once she kisses him goodbye. It's a cliched moment nowadays, but placed within the context of this sentimental drama, it still manages to elicit an emotional response from viewers.

After they marry, he and Katherine move into one of the houses at the school, and she slowly begins working on making him more popular among the boys. She begins inviting them to have tea and cakes on Sunday afternoon, and she's also the one who suggests that he try telling a few jokes as a part of his lessons. It works, and he begins to believe in himself as both a good teacher and a potential headmaster. Sadly, Katherine dies in childbirth, as does the baby she's carrying. Mr. Chips goes to his class that night—ironically, it's April Fool's Day—but he cannot carry on with his lesson. After one of the boys arrives late and begins to spread the word about the death of Mrs. Chips, you see just how much they care about Mr. Chips, how much loved he and his wife are. The closeups of the tearful faces of the boys make for a tender scene, to be sure, and one of the few that made me almost tear up. That probably has more to do with Garson’s portion of the movie being over, though, rather than any natural sympathy that Donat has earned in his performance.

Throughout the film, there are various montages to mark the passage of time. There’s nothing like a good montage in an older movie, is there? For the most part, it's always the roll call of students entering the school. They are always in alphabetical order, an astounding feat, and they call out their names as they pass by Mr. Chips or whichever person has the clipboard. We see them in various uniforms for athletics or academics as they pass, so we get a sense of the styles of clothing common to the period. We also get brief moments where the boys talk about current events so that we know the specific year or era in which some of the actions take place. It's during these scenes that we also get to see one of the running gags of the film: "There's always a Colley here." Indeed, there is always a Colley. Mr. Chips teaches four generations of them himself, and all of them are played by Terry Kilburn. It makes for some cute moments, but nothing laugh-out-loud funny.

The final portion of Mr. Chips' dream (or flashback, if you prefer) involves the war years. Despite having retired already, Chips is asked to serve as headmaster when all of the younger men enlist to serve in World War I. Several of the boys sign up as soon as they are old enough, and it's a sobering moment when Chips has to read out the names of the war dead, and we recognize several of the former students as being on the list. Among the first he has to read is that of Peter Colley, whose wife and child Mr. Chips has been visiting at Colley's request. The movie doesn't make a great deal of the depths of the loss to England of that generation of young men, but then that would take the focus off Mr. Chips and he is the center of attention for the film. It's really more about how the war and the deaths of all those boys he taught affect him rather than how it might have had an impact on the school or the other boys.

Donat isn’t necessarily bad in the title role. He does get to age several decades throughout the film, and I suppose he is having the most fun in the part when he's allowed to play an old man. He seems to get some of the best lines in those scenes, and he’s adapted his body movements to mimic an older man. I suspect it's that range of ages that won him the Oscar, and the make-up is pretty convincing. However, I still maintain that it's a far too theatrical style of acting that he's doing here. Compare him to, say, Garson in the same film. She is much more realistic and believable. When her character dies (far too quickly for my taste), the heart of the film is gone too, and Donat is allowed to overact without a strong naturalistic performer to balance him.

I've never been fond of movies about teachers. They always try to ennoble the profession and the people who practice it. Not everyone can be as beloved as Mr. Chips, certainly, and not everyone should be. Yet when people watch a film like Goodbye, Mr. Chips, they start to judge all teachers by the standards set by fictional characters like Mr. Chips. Live, flesh-and-blood teachers have good days and bad days. Some of us are strong when it comes to lecturing, and others are strong at garnering class participation. Some have effective classrooms because they are disciplinarians, and others create welcoming environments by being laxer about the rules. We never get to see the other teachers performing in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and in truth, we don't even get to see Mr. Chips teach that often. However, I suppose everyone would want a teacher who could manage to get a class through a passage in Julius Caesar while outside the city of London is being bombed. I just don't think all teachers would be up to that task, nor would many of us even feel it is appropriate to endanger students during such a time. That's why no one should choose a fictional teacher to serve as a role model to actual people.

Oscar Win: Best Actor (Robert Donat)

Other Oscar Nominations: Outstanding Production, Best Actress (Greer Garson), Best Director (Sam Wood), Best Screenplay, Best Sound Recording, and Best Film Editing

Kitty Foyle (1940)

Kitty Foyle, one of the ten nominees for Best Picture of 1940, has such an odd structure to it. It isn't confusing, by any means; I don't mean that. It's just strange. Much of the film is a discussion between the title character, played by Ginger Rogers, and her reflection in the mirror. I do understand that the mirror is supposed to represent Kitty's conscience, but wouldn't she know the details of her own history? Why would she need her conscience or her reflection or anyone else to relate these events back to her? I suppose that's what passed for a clever plot device in 1940, and maybe that's why this standard soap opera-ish film was chosen to be one of the Best Picture finalists. Other than Rogers' performance as Kitty, there's little else that's above average in this film.

Subtitled The Natural History of a Woman, Kitty Foyle begins with a sequence designed to show the development of women's rights since 1900, particularly the so-called equality that women have achieved as a result of the suffrage movement. It's really a rather condescending presentation, particularly as it suggests that what equality has truly brought is the inability of a woman to sit down on a crowded trolley because men no longer feel obligated to have manners. It's pretty clear that we're meant to think that women were better off before they started demanding to be treated as the equal of men. Like I said, a very condescending attitude.

When the story finally gets to Kitty herself, we learn that she has been dating a handsome young doctor. He is so dedicated to his career that they have to stop on the way to dinner so that he can deliver a baby. He proposes to Kitty while she's holding another woman's child in her arms because they both decide that it "looks" and "feels" right. However, he wants reassurances from her that her relationship with some man in Philadelphia is over before they wed, and he asks her to meet him the next day at noon for the ceremony. With the kind of timing that only Hollywood could invent, the man from Philadelphia, actually her first husband, Wyn Strafford VI (Dennis Morgan), is waiting for her back at her apartment. He too wants to be with Kitty, and he invites her to join him on a trip to Buenos Aires. He's married again and can't divorce his current wife, but Kitty initially decides that she will leave with him at midnight.

That's when the magic mirror begins. Or maybe it's the snow globe that's magic. You see, Kitty has this snow globe that she purchased for her father years ago, and she shakes it while looking at herself in the mirror. That snow globe is used as a transition between the various scenes from Kitty's past that follow, and it's a remarkable globe indeed that could keep the snow whirling for almost two hours without all settling to the bottom. I suppose, though, that if you have a magic mirror that represents your conscience, you ought to have a magic snow globe that serves as a bridge between thematic elements in your life story.

Wyn and Kitty initially meet at her father's home. Wyn is starting a magazine named Philly and has decided to interview his old cricket coach, Pop (Ernest Cossart), Kitty's dad, for a story. He hires Kitty to be a secretary, and it isn't long before he's making suggestive comments to her. Nowadays, some of the statements he makes into the Dictaphone would be considered sexual harassment (and pretty stupid, considering that she would have a record of them to use as evidence). However, Kitty is also attracted to him, and they begin dating. He takes her to New York to a speakeasy on the night of Franklin Roosevelt's election, and they share a bottle of some hard-to-pronounce Italian drink. He also takes her to the Poconos, making her wonder if he's trying to hide from his rich friends and family the fact that she is from a poor background.

Despite warnings from her father that wealthy people like Wyn always marry each other, Kitty decides to stay with him. However, after her father dies and then the magazine folds during the Great Depression, she leaves for New York and starts a career on her own. She becomes a cosmetics saleswoman for fashion designer Delphine Detaille (Odette Myrtil), and in a comic accident involving a fire alarm button, she meets Dr. Mark Eisen (James Craig), who tries to convince her to go out on a date with him. Their first date is three hours of playing cards, double solitaire, a rather inauspicious beginning and one that makes Kitty wonder about his intentions. Subsequent dates go better once he realizes that she isn't out to get his money, the reason he had "tested" her with the cards.

That, of course, is when Wyn returns to Kitty's life. It's the night of the Assembly, the largest ball in Philadelphia for the upper class, and he's there to keep his promise to take her...just not in Philadelphia. He rents out an entire room for the night and brings her a dress and flowers. They're the last ones on the dance floor when the sun begins to rise, and it's clear that Kitty is still in love with him. They marry without his family's consent, and the moment that he introduces Kitty to the family as his wife is a shocker. The delightfully wry Gladys Cooper plays Mrs. Strafford, who begins to make plans to send Kitty to school and make her more presentable to society. If she refuses and Wyn takes her away from the family, he loses all of his money. Kitty decides instead to divorce Wyn and leave Philadelphia behind her forever.

That's not how the film ends or even all of the key moments in the plot, but I've spared you the death of Kitty's baby in childbirth--it was Wyn's, not to worry. And I've skipped over the subplot involving an unusual ring shaped like a serpent that belonged to Wyn's grandmother and allegedly represents eternal life. I've also avoided talking about the scene where Kitty meets the new Mrs. Wyn Stafford and her son. All of these scenes are played with too much sentimentality to rise above the maudlin. Of course, I've also left you without knowing which of the two men Kitty chooses at the film's end. If you want to find out, you can watch on your own. I have no idea if you'll be surprised or not.

Rogers won the Oscar for Best Actress for the title role, and she is quite good here. She's not the charismatic co-star of all of those films with dancing partner Fred Astaire. Instead, she has to carry the film almost all on her own, and she's certainly up to the task. I don't think she's particularly convincing as a little girl in some of the earlier flashback sequences, but they are thankfully brief. She's shot in soft focus throughout much of the film, giving her face a particularly gleaming quality. As talented an actress as Rogers is, though, I would have given the award that year to Bette Davis for The Letter or maybe to Joan Fontaine for Rebecca. Both of those actresses had more substantial material to work with, and both of them delivered classic performances. Rogers, while certainly a fine actress, isn't really their equal in this role.